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Bowman County Commission looks at feasibility of old airport conversion

November 13, 2015

BOWMAN -- The Bowman County Commission met for a special meeting Friday morning to hear the results of a feasibility study regarding converting the space of the old Bowman County Municipal Airport into an industrial park.

Commissioner Ken Steiner said Gilmore Planning consultant Ross Graves presented information to the commission. He said there were no decisions made yet as to whether to go through with the plan.

Steiner said, if the deal goes through, the county would buy the old airport for around $646,000, along with an adjacent piece of private property worth about $237,000 for the industrial park.

Steiner said the City of Bowman would pay for infrastructure, which it can do with surge funding received from the state.

In addition, there are around 50 acres of wetlands that Steiner said authorities may try to get reserved via the North Dakota Department of Transportation.

The runway has recently been dug out of the site in keeping with Federal Aviation Administration guidelines for disused airports.

“Now we’ll just have to wait for the FAA to sign off on it, then we can go ahead and move forward,” Steiner said.

Commissioner Rick Braaten said Graves proposed that the project could be completed in phases, each one pending on what funding existed at the time.

He said a decision on the project will likely be made at the commission’s regular meeting in December.

In the meantime, Steiner said a public input meeting on the project would be held sometime in the future.